


stepping stone

by myownremedy



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Addiction, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark is CEO, Bitch, and a recovering drug addict. Eduardo is his sober companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stepping stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shortcrust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortcrust/gifts).



> for the lovely shortcrusts, extremely delayed. she bid a generous amount in the fandomaid auction for the Philippines and this is the idea i finally committed to. straight up elementary au, because mark as sherlock and eduardo as watson is fantastic. sorry about the ending?? oh my god.
> 
> trigger warning for: references to drug use, discussion of addiction, naming of drugs, discussion of withdrawal, alcoholism, child abuse, death. If you're an addict and in a bad place, or shaky with your sobriety, don't read.  
> I tried to be as faithful to the recovery process as I remember it, though I never used cocaine. 
> 
> stuff you should know;  
> \- the _big book_ is the book alcoholics use. it's blue and ginormous and has the steps and stories and instructions in it. it was written in the thirties, is kind of like a bible and you could use it to bludgeon someone to death. it was also written by men and is mildly sexist; the sex inventory is really a love inventory, but back then men didn't talk about love.  
>  \- the _blue book_ is the book drug addicts use. it's also blue, less ginormous, has steps and stories and instructions in it but is it written in a less formal manner and was first started in the 70s. NA (narcotics anonymous) was also started in the 70s and aimed at young people doing drugs, thus the informal writing style of the blue book.  
>  \- [this](http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf) is a list of the steps.  
> \- sponsors are people who have worked the steps before, are still sober, and are the same sex (or at least gender identity?? unknown) of their sponsee. this was a tradition started by AA in the thirties to discourage romantic entanglements between sponsor and sponsee. yes, it's heteronormative. another reason is because a lot of time, addict's experiences are gendered.
> 
> Disclaimer: if Aaron Sorkin gets to write grossly inaccurate RPF about Mark Zuckerberg and make a lot of money off of it and win an oscar, I get to write this and make absolutely no money. NONE OF THIS IS TRUE.  
> edit (4-13-15): this is a transformative work. I make no money off of it. I do not own what inspired this work (The Social Network, Elementary), but I do own this work itself and hold full copyright over it. Thank you.

 

“Most sober companions are former addicts themselves,” Mark’s voice is clipped, terse even. Eduardo will eventually learn this is just the way he talks, unless he’s excited – but Mark won’t get excited around him for a while. “But you aren’t.”

“No,” Eduardo agrees. “I’m not.”

There’s a story there and Mark wants it, but Eduardo – Eduardo doesn’t like to give his clients everything they want.

(He realizes, later, that he’s kidding himself if he thinks he’ll change Mark, make it the first time that Mark doesn’t get what he wants.

But isn’t that what sobriety is about? Change?

Mark throws Eduardo off balance. Eduardo is no longer sure of much.)

 

*

 

“Zuckerberg?” Eduardo asks. “As in?”

“Mark Zuckerberg?” Amelia finishes for him. Reception’s not the best in the bar, but Eduardo can hear she’s smiling. He likes Amelia, because she’s straight with him 100% of the time. “Yep, that’s the one.”

“What’s his poison?” Eduardo tries to keep his tone light. He hates talking about work with friends, knows KC and Bob are glancing over at him in concern.

“Cocaine,” Amelia sounds tired, suddenly. “He’s so rarely in public that it’s not public knowledge, but –”

Eduardo knows she’s going to say _it’s bad_ because it is _always_ bad, because that’s how addiction works.

“When does he get out of rehab?” He asks, trying to cover the painful gap in conversation, the gap they always repeat because what they do is immensely painful and immensely rewarding, and Eduardo isn’t sure what it’s more of, and which he likes more.

“A week and a half,” Amelia sounds relieved. She always does. “You interested?”

Eduardo thinks about everything he’s heard about Mark Zuckerberg: brilliant, unpersonable, difficult, awkward.

“Sure,” he says. Eduardo likes challenges.

 

*

 

Mark gets out of rehab and Eduardo is waiting for him when he gets home. Mark stops when he sees him, cocks his head a bit, left hand in his hoodie pocket, and Eduardo is reminded of a bird of prey.

“You’re the babysitter,” Mark says, staccato and fast.

“Sober companion,” Eduardo corrects. His hands are also in his pockets, and his voice sounds rueful to his own ears.

“No.” Mark tells him. Eduardo thinks that Mark is rejecting all of it, the entire premise of the sober companionship, and the idea he needs such things, but –

“You’ve only been sober for six weeks, Mark.”

“I’d hardly call it only,” Mark says, setting down his duffel on the couch. His laptop is on the coffee table and Mark is looking at it. Eduardo crosses over to it, smooth, and picks it up.

“I didn’t mean to belittle your sobriety. But it’s not a long amount of time. You need guidance.”

“Fuck off,” Mark says. His tone is biting but there’s no real heat to it and he’s watching Eduardo carefully. Then: “Do you really think you’re taking that?”

“Yes,” Eduardo says. “It’s a trigger, Mark.”

“I need it to code.”

“I’ve already spoken to Chris and Dustin. They say you don’t need to do any of the sort until you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

Eduardo takes in the way Mark is looking at the laptop, half in fear, half in need. He forces his voice to go gentle. “It’s not going to feel the same. Coding while sober. You need to be prepared.”

Mark scowls at him. Eduardo smiles back.

 

*

 

In another life, Eduardo would have given Mark everything he wanted. In another life, he would have been a terrible sober companion. In another life, he would have given Mark nineteen thousand dollars and his beating heart, and Mark would have failed to communicate how much that meant to him.

In another life, Eduardo would have attended Harvard with Mark, Dustin, and Chris, would have been their friend and graduated magna cum laude.

 

In this life, he pours all of Mark’s red bull down the sink, brews Mark a strong cup of tea and uses his phone to pull up the meeting schedule for Palo Alto.

“Do you have a preference?” he asks Mark, eyes on his phone, and then looks up at Mark’s noise of incomprehension.

Mark is frowning. He hates not understanding. He may as well have it skywritten. Eduardo has not been here long enough and he already knows that.

“A meeting preference.” Eduardo clarifies. “AA or NA?”

“Whichever is less tedious,” Mark waves a hand and makes it clear how much he _does not care_. Eduardo doesn’t buy it for a second.

“We’ll go to a mix of both,” he says. “See which you like best.”

 

*

 

Two weeks in, and Eduardo’s learned nothing that he needs too, so he buys a copy of _The Accidental Billionaires_ and starts to read it. Mark catches him.

“Really?” Mark asks, snatching the book out of his hands and hefting the weight of it like a threat. “You could have just asked, Wardo.”

It’s the first time he’s said Wardo and Eduardo flushes a bit.

“You won’t answer any of my questions,” he says, defensive. “I couldn’t have just asked.”

“Your addict questions, you mean?” Mark asks, rolling his eyes. “I’ll answer questions about Facebook. It’s – it’s Facebook.”

Maybe Mark actually is an idiot, Eduardo thinks, because the two things are connected.

 

He brings it up late at night, when Mark is quiet and withdrawn after a meeting. Someone named Anne had shared that night, a share that was so heartbreaking it literally stunned the entire room, and Mark has been moody ever since.

Eduardo thinks that Mark is also moody because he refuses to drink coffee and he doesn’t smoke, which makes him a minority in AA.

“Why did you make Facebook?” Eduardo asks, and doesn’t expect an answer.

But Mark stirs, like the lure of talking about the one thing he truly loved was too much, and sighs. Eduardo feels Mark’s sigh in his bones, thinks absently how weird that is.

“I wanted to be the best,” he offers. It’s a cataclysmic moment of honesty and Eduardo has to force himself not to recoil.

“In the industry?”

“In something.” Mark isn’t looking at him.

 

*

 

Five weeks ahead and Mark crawls into bed with him, not because they’re fucking but because he’s lonely, and confesses the real reason.

_I wanted to be included._

Eduardo understands.

 

*

 

“I need to code again, Wardo,” Mark says, insistent. “I can’t be – be bored.”

“The last time you coded, you were high.” Eduardo says, firm. “How can you know that coding won’t trigger you?”

“Because I want to be _sober_ ,” Mark growls. “And I get what I want.”

On anyone else, it would be arrogant. On Mark, it’s honest. Because he works for what he wants, and he gets it, and if he doesn’t like something he does something about it.

Eduardo looks at him. Mark is pale, lips red from being bitten, and half lit up by the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. He’s wearing a ratty hoodie, cargo shorts and flip flops. Eduardo falls a little bit in love with him, quick and sharp, and inhales.

“You can code for an hour, with supervision,” he decides. “And we’re going to a meeting tonight.”

Mark looks at him, then inclines his head. It’s very deliberate. Eduardo leaves the room to get Mark’s laptop and charger.

 

Mark codes every day for an hour, and then checks in with Eduardo. Or rather, Eduardo asks him a lot of questions and Mark gets irritated and grumpy, which is – normal, for him. Eduardo doesn’t think he’s triggered.

But Mark’s hands shake the first time he touches the keyboard, and he relaxes whenever Eduardo takes the laptop out of the room.

Eduardo thinks that coding is linked to the cocaine, even if Facebook isn’t. As if Facebook and coding are completely different, in Mark’s brain. That makes sense, because addiction makes no sense.

 

*

 

Eduardo’s former client, Marylin Deply, was a lawyer – not a surprise, because lawyers have a high substance abuse rate. He had explained the steps to her, because she hadn’t found a sponsor she liked, and Marylin had frowned down at her big book.

“This is just another law book,” she says after a minute and Eduardo had panicked.

“No, it’s –”

“I love law,” Marylin explains, gripping her big book tightly. “It makes sense. In my international law class, I read something by Henkin that said ‘much of law, and the most successful part, is a codification of existing mores, of how people behave and feel they ought to behave.’ He said that’s what law is…it promotes order, guides, restrains, and regulates our behavior. It makes sense.”

Eduardo studied economics at NYU and understands, now, where she’s going with this.

“Addiction is chaos,” he acknowledges. “So, a group of people imposed order onto it.”

“I love law.” Marylin repeats, and clutches the book against her chest.

 

“Did you ever study law, Mark?” Eduardo asks. Mark is reading the Iliad – _in Ancient Greek._ Eduardo knows smart people, is pretty smart himself, smart enough to make $300,000 from betting on oil shares, but he’s never met anyone who speaks Ancient Greek under the age of 60.

“No,” Mark snorts. “I was a psych major at Harvard.” It’s best to ask Mark questions when he’s off guard because then he’ll actually _answer_ them. “Why?”

“I have a friend – a former client, actually – who’s a lawyer. Her understanding of the Big Book is quite poetic, and is law based. I think you’d like it.”

Mark scowls down at the Iliad. Maybe he’s not scowling at Eduardo, maybe Achilles is being difficult.

“I don’t need the twelve steps,” Mark’s voice is flat. “They’re a joke.”

“It was a condition to leave rehab,” Eduardo reminds him, patient. “You agreed to it.”

“I’m allowed to change my mind.”

“No, Mark, you aren’t.” Eduardo sinks steel into his voice. Mark looks up.

“You remind me of Chris,” he says, which isn’t related. Eduardo raises an eyebrow, and waits.

“Okay,” Mark snaps. “I’ll meet your friend. Whatever.”

Eduardo waits until Mark isn’t looking at him to grin.

 

Turns out Mark and Marylin know each other, because Marylin freezes when she sees Mark, and Mark cocks his head and blinks at her.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. Eduardo rolls his eyes.

“So friendly, Mark,” he chides.

“We’re friends,” Mark tells him, irritated.

“I didn’t realize,” Marylin says, and Eduardo finally works out that they know each other.

“Wait,” he says. “You two know each other?”

“She’s my lawyer,” Mark says. “Or, one of them. She does corporate law.”

Marylin looks at Eduardo. “He’s your new client?” She demands.

“This is. Wow,” Eduardo says. He wants a dry cappuccino with an extra shot in it. “Alright.”

“You’re the one with the ‘poetic’ interpretation of the big book?” Mark asks.   Eduardo stands; Marylin slips into the booth in his place.

He’s confident she’ll talk Mark around, so he leaves, gets his coffee and thinks about how fucking small the world is.

 

*

 

“I need to go back to work,” Mark says one morning. He’s not dressed any differently but there’s a backpack slung over his shoulder. Eduardo thinks about it. Structure is good. But Mark used at his office. It’s a trigger.

He opens his mouth to say so and Mark holds up a hand.

“You have to address triggers eventually,” is what he says, and he’s right.

“I’ll go get my bag,” Eduardo tells him.

He ends up sitting on Mark’s comfy leather couch while Mark codes, and answers emails, and argues people over the phone. He’s jittery, eyes bright and face flushed, hands scrabbling over the keyboard, but the longer they’re there the more Mark seems to come into his own.

He still hisses like a wildcat when Eduardo forces him to stop and eat lunch.

“I don’t need it,” he snaps and Eduardo resists the urge to grab him by his collar and haul him bodily out of the chair.

“You do,” he says instead, firm, and hooks his fingers under the curve of Mark’s arm, levers him up from his chair and half drags him to the cafeteria.

“Wardo,” Mark grumbles, but he’s lax in Eduardo’s grip. “I would have eaten eventually.”

“Returning to work means regular meals,” Eduardo tells him. “And a healthy amount of water.”

He trails Mark through the lunch line, gets a veggie wrap and sits with Mark at the booth near the windows.

“Anything else?” Mark asks, sarcastic and grating. “Should I start doing yoga and connecting with my inner child?”

“Actually,” Eduardo says, thoughtful. “I think you should take up fencing again.”

Mark – Mark thinks about it, and that’s how Eduardo knows it’s a good idea.

 

*

 

“I had a good childhood, my parents loved me, no one bullied me, realizing I was gay wasn’t particularly traumatic and I’m the youngest billionaire in the world. I don’t need a babysitter.” It’s their third day and Mark is frustrated. Frustrated enough to pace. Frustrated enough to list off facts of his normalcy, like it will erase the part of his identity that is also _addict_. “Can you leave now?”

“But you are an addict.” Eduardo says gently, ignoring his question. “That’s not going to go away, Mark.”

“Like you’d fucking know,” Mark snarls, and then frowns. “I’m sorry, that was mean.”

Eduardo feels cold, shoves it away – this isn’t about him. “It was.” He acknowledges. “Your childhood doesn’t matter. Everything normal about you doesn’t matter. What matters is why you used, and what you wanted from it.”

“ _Why_?” Mark demands. He stops pacing and turns to stare at Eduardo, looking slightly crazed. “Why isn’t it enough to work hard to never do it again? Why I am like this forever?”

“You just are,” Eduardo says. He wants to hug Mark until he relaxes. He’s never wanted to hug a client before like that. “Addict isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just…it’s just another fact. Like blond, or far sighted. But it never goes away.”

“So it’s more like being diabetic,” Mark snaps. “Wait, they inject themselves. Bad metaphor for addicts.” He’s being rude on purpose, the frustration building and Eduardo laces his hands together in front of him.

“Mark,” he says, quiet and low. “I’m here to make sure you don’t relapse. I’ve been a sober companion for a while and everyone who has followed the steps and wanted it badly enough has stayed sober. Please, give it a try.”

“It’s none of your business,” Mark switches tactics. Typical. Eduardo has only known him three days but he knows that’s typical. “Why I used, how I started, any of it.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Eduardo concedes after a minute. “But you have to tell someone.”

 

*

 

 

“You need a sponsor,” Eduardo announces. They’ve been together for three and a half weeks. Mark has grudgingly started actually _reading_ his big book.

(Eduardo got him both, the big book and the blue book, but Mark likes the big book better. Eduardo figured he would.)

“No,” Mark says flatly. “I have you. One babysitter is enough.”

“But a sponsor isn’t a babysitter,” Eduardo says. “A sponsor is someone who’s worked the program and can teach you about it, and is there for you.” He pauses. “Besides. You won’t always have me.”

Mark looks up at that. “What?” he demands. Then: “I won’t?” Like the thought has only just occurred to him.

“No,” Eduardo frowns at him. “I’m here for two and a half more weeks, Mark. That’s it.”

“Oh.” Mark says, and slinks off.

 

He’s not allowed to code when he’s upset anymore, because it’s unhealthy, so Eduardo isn’t surprised to hear the swish of a foil a short time later.

He goes to investigate and finds Mark brutally attacking his fencing dummy.

“You never wanted me here in the first place,” is all Eduardo says. He’s careful to lean against the doorway, out of reach of Mark’s foil, and tries to ignore the warmth inside him at Mark’s obvious disgruntlement that Eduardo is going to leave.

“I don’t like change.” Mark snaps.

“You change facebook all the time,” Eduardo accuses. Mark huffs.

“That’s different,” he says, then glances over and sees Eduardo’s disbelieving expression. “It’s a way to make it more efficient, Wardo. The code we have now is so much better then we had even six months ago. It’s necessary.”

“And you don’t see this change as necessary?”

“You’re in my life now,” Mark looks away. “Stay in it.”

It’s the nicest and most emotionally constipated way that Mark has ever said _I like you_ to Eduardo, and it still makes Eduardo smile.

“It doesn’t mean we’ll never see each other again,” he promises. “We will.”

“It won’t be the same,” Mark says, and leaves the room.

 

*

 

Chris and Dustin come over. They bring root beer instead of actual beer and Eduardo shakes both of their hands.

He’s met them before; they had let him into Mark’s house, had explained what Mark was like, his behaviors, given him a background. But they’re different when they aren’t working. They kick back and play halo and Eduardo smiles and sips his root beer.

Mark takes a while to relax. He keeps glancing at all of them, eyes sharp under his protruding brow, and it takes Eduardo a while to figure it out. Mark doesn’t know how to act around them, now that this is the _after_ , when he was so used to the _before_ and the _during_. Eduardo tries to figure out how to make it better, ends up getting up and wandering into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich.

Chris and Dustin focus on Mark immediately. He can hear it, even if he can’t see it.

“How are you doing?” Chris asks, concerned. Eduardo squirts mayo onto his sandwich and debates trying not to listen. He ends up listening anyway.

“Fine,” Mark says, sharp, and there’s a pause. “I am. I’m okay. I’m – I’m handling it.”

“Has Sean been bothering you?” That’s Dustin’s voice.

 _Who is Sean?_ Eduardo wonders, assembling cold cuts on his sandwich.

“No,” Mark sounds irritable. “Hopefully he knows better.” A pause. “Eduardo leaves in two and a half weeks.”

“Yeah.” Dustin and Chris chorus.

“He says I need a sponsor.”

“What’s that?”

“A mentor. Like him but not live in, I guess.”

“You gonna get one?” Chris, this time.

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Mark says, slow. Eduardo opens the fridge and returns the meat and cheese as loudly as possible. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, so I’m going to do it. How else am I going to stay sober?”

“You will,” Dustin says cheerily. “You can do anything, remember?”

Eduardo emerges then, holding his sandwich in one hand. “Hi,” he says, smiling. “What have I missed?”

 

Chris and Dustin leave and Mark waves them out the door and then corners Eduardo – or, rather, leans against the wall and folds his arms and stares at Eduardo. Eduardo looks up from his copy of _The Economist_ and raises his eyebrows.

“You heard us,” Mark says.

“Yes.”

“So what do you think?” Mark is staring at him intently. This means a lot to him. Eduardo appreciates that Mark never tries to pretend like it doesn’t.

“One thing like a sponsor isn’t going to keep you sober, Mark. _You_ have to keep you sober, and your higher power. You work the steps, you stay away from drugs, you make sure you’re doing the right thing everyday and you find different coping mechanisms – and you still might relapse.”

“Encouraging,” Mark snaps.

“I’m just trying to be honest. You just have to _want_ it, Mark. And it looks like you do, more then a lot of people I’ve met.”

“So a sponsor.”

“A sponsor,” Eduardo agrees. “Mark? Who’s Sean?”

 

*

 

Sean Parker. Eduardo had read about him in _The_ _Accidental Billionaires_. Former President of Facebook, pretty instrumental in the success of the company. What wasn’t included in the book: cocaine addict, Mark’s drug dealer.

“Your dealer works for you?!” Eduardo exclaims. “Still?!”

“He’s good at what he does,” Mark is scowling. “For the company. This isn’t just about me, Wardo.”

Eduardo has never let anyone give him a nickname before. Mark Zuckerberg is a force of nature. Now Eduardo has a nickname.

“Can’t you transfer him to Bolivia?” Eduardo demands. “Somewhere far away?”

Mark shrugs. “He hasn’t bothered me.”

“Yet,” Eduardo tells him.

 

Eduardo goes and bothers Sean. He’s easy to find, because no one in the entire office system has walls except for Mark and for conference rooms. Eduardo makes sure Mark is absorbed in coding before seeking Sean out.

“Sean Parker,” he says. Eduardo is good at being quiet and pleasant and generally menancing as hell. It’s a skill he learned from his father.

Sean glances up from fiddling with a pen. “Oh,” he says. He has shifty eyes. Eduardo doesn’t like him. “Hi. You’re…”

“Eduardo Saverin,” Eduardo remains standing, even when Sean motions to a chair. “Mark’s sober companion.”

“Ah,” Sean says, eyes widening slightly. “Yes. What can I for you?”

Eduardo smiles. Sean swallows.

“I want you to stay far away from Mark. I do not _ever_ want you to use in this building. If I found out that you have used here, or approached Mark about drugs, I will have you arrested for dealing illegal drugs. Do you understand me?”

The people around them are listening; the typing as stopped altogether. Sean glances around, nervous, and then back at Eduardo, who is still smiling.

“I do,” he says finally, trying for casual. His sneer is more of a grimace. Eduardo lets his smile linger, and then leaves.

Chris catches him right before he goes back to Mark’s office.

“You’re terrifying,” he says, respectful, and Eduardo glances at him sharply. He sees something he can relate to in Chris – two sharks acknowledging each other. This time, his smile is real.

“Keep an eye on him?” Eduardo asks, and Chris nods.

 

*

 

Divya Narendra is a slim Indian man who dresses in slacks and mostly dark colors. He also has an explosive temper, and his shares are always infused with passion.

Eduardo has seen him before, at meetings, knows that Divya works at a corporation, is at least as smart as Mark, and is interesting enough to keep Mark interested.

Mark beats him to it.

“I want Divya,” he says as Divya takes the stage. Divya is practically vibrating. They’re talking about step four. Eduardo thinks it’s enough to make anyone vibrate.

“Good choice,” Eduardo says, smiling. Mark throws him a look. It’s a careful nonexpression but Eduardo thinks that Mark is amused.

Christy Lee turns around and shushes them as Divya takes the floor.

 

“How long have you been clean?” Divya asks Mark later, lounging in a leather armchair. They’re in a secluded corner of a coffee shop nearby and Eduardo is sitting next to Mark on the leather couch, doing his best to hold his tongue. He thinks, absently, he should have brought popcorn so he could really enjoy this. Two intellectual giants, battling it out.

“10 weeks,” Mark says after a minute. Pride and uncertainty soak the syllables. “You?”

“Three years,” Divya says. “I had an amazing sponsor.”

“Yeah?”

Divya nods. “He taught me a lot.”

Eduardo gets up to order a coffee. He isn’t needed here. Mark is eying Divya like Divya has a secret and Mark wants to find it out, and Divya has noticed.

Eduardo just hopes Divya doesn’t give too much up too quickly.

 

*

 

“Are you ever going to tell me why you started using?”

“No.”

 

*

 

“He wants me to work on step four,” Mark says from the foot of Eduardo’s bed. Eduardo jerks awake. It’s six AM and Mark looks like he has bruises under his eyes. Eduardo could kick himself.

He knows Mark was unsettled after last night but apparently he wasn’t paying enough attention, because Mark looks jittery, his lips bitten red, his hair standing on end.

“Did you knock?” Eduardo demands, trying to give himself time to wake up. Mark is peering at him oddly, eyes on Eduardo’s bare chest and Eduardo resists the urge to pull the sheets up to his chin.

“You didn’t hear me,” Mark tells him. “Eduardo. Wardo. I can’t do step four.”

“Why?” He gentles his voice and sees Mark stiffen, then deflate.

“I don’t want to talk about her.”

Chris and Dustin have never, _ever_ mentioned a woman. Theories race through his head. Girlfriend? Mother? Sister? Next door neighbor?

“You have too,” he tells Mark, because Mark does best with blunt. “Or she’ll keep creeping up on you.”

Mark inhales slowly.

 

*

 

“You know so much about me,” Mark tells him one night. They’re sitting out on his patio, looking up at the sky in vain. There’s too much light pollution for proper star gazing but this seems to settle Mark, and gives Eduardo time to observe him. “I don’t know much about you.”

“Are you asking me to tell you about myself?” Eduardo asks, dryly amused, and Mark nods sharply.

“Yes.”

“I was an economics major,” Eduardo tells him after a minute. “At NYU. My family is from Florida by way of Brazil. I never finished my degree.”

“Why?”

“My mother was an alcoholic,” Eduardo admits. He’s held this one so close to the chest for so long, but his time with Mark is up in a week and he thinks it’s safe to play the last of his cards, to tell Mark the truth. Mark had asked him the first day, he remembers suddenly. “My father was – not good to her, or me.”

Mark is watching him carefully. He frowns at Eduardo’s words and Eduardo gives him a lopsided grin.

“So, she died. I’m still fuzzy on the details. She’d tried to get sober before, but living with my father – there was no way for her to stay sober.”

“Alcoholism,” Mark says, like he’s trying out the word for the first time. “Did she drink herself to death?”

“She was drunk, and my father helped kill her.” Eduardo keeps it brief. He doesn’t like to think about this. “He’s in prison, now. It was all over the news. Everyone knew.”

“So you dropped out.”

“I became a sober companion,” Eduardo agrees. “I still bet on oil shares. But I’m happy helping other people.”

“No,” Mark argues. “You’re making sure it never happens again.”

Eduardo keeps like he’s been punched. He stares at Mark, confused, and Mark’s mouth twists.

“You don’t have to save the world, Wardo.” He’s never heard Mark be so gentle.

Eduardo doesn’t say anything. After a minute, Mark takes his hand and squeezes it once, deliberately, then goes to let go. Eduardo doesn’t let him.

 

*

 

“Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?” Mark asks. He’s chewing on his pen and in the middle of his step four chart.

Eduardo tries not to read into this question too deeply. His heart is summersaulting through his stomach.

“Yes,” he says after a minute. “Yes, I do.”

Mark smiles at him.

 

*

 

Her name is Erica Albright. She’s beautiful, with green eyes and long brown hair, and she’s engaged to be married to someone named Cameron Winklevoss.

“How long did you two date?” Eduardo asks, balancing the laptop on his lap. It’s his last week with Mark, and Mark is sitting next to him on the couch, peering at Erica Albright’s facebook page.

“Two years,” Mark is scowling. “We broke up when I moved out here, for Facebook.”

“Was it mutual?”

“I love her,” Mark says instead. “It was the right thing to do for the company but it – it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“But it did,” Eduardo says, gently.

“Cameron Winklevoss runs ConnectU, along with his brother. They were one of our main rivals.”

 _Oh_.

“She betrayed you.”

Mark laughs unhappily. “It sounds stupid.”

“No,” Eduardo sinks as much honesty into the word as he can. “It doesn’t.”

“I had used before, just…recreationally. It’s good for getting a boost, for when I really needed a push. And then I found about she was engaged – she didn’t even tell me! – and I just. I needed to be the best. And then I couldn’t _stop_ using.”

“You did, though,” Eduardo reminds him.

Mark is more agitated then Eduardo has ever seen him. “But nothing changed, Wardo. I’m happy for her, okay. But why couldn’t it have been me?”

“When you asked me about loving two people at once.” Eduardo interrupts. “Where you asking about her or about you?”

“Me,” Mark admits after a moment, ducking his head. “I was talking about me.”

Eduardo reaches over and takes his hand. After a minute, Mark squeezes it.

“I don’t know how to move on,” Mark admits, voice small. “I want to have more then facebook, Wardo.”

“You do.” Eduardo tells him.

Mark looks at him. _Do I have you?_

Eduardo looks away. Instead he says, “You have Chris, and Dustin, and Divya, and Marylin. And me – I’m your friend.”

_I’m your friend._

“And eventually, you’ll fall in love again.” He doesn’t know who they’re talking about anymore. “But in the mean time – you have to make amends.”

 

*

 

Mark helps him move out. Eduardo has become a very efficient packer over the years and all of his stuff fits neatly into his sedan. What doesn’t fit is the aching in his chest. He’s used to leaving, maybe running into clients at meetings or around town but he has never felt like this – like he’s trying to peel away his flesh from his bones and leave it behind.

Mark touches his arm to get his attention and Eduardo flinches. He fucked up. He should have moved out as soon as he fell in love with Mark, two weeks in. What if he leaves and Mark relapses? Mark will be alone again.

“I’ll miss you.” Mark says and Eduardo nods, biting his lip.

“And I, you,” he says, oddly formal. Mark cracks a smile.

“Keep in touch?”

“We can still be friends, Mark,” Eduardo says against his better judgment.

Mark squints up at him. “Just friends?”

“Just friends,” Eduardo can’t keep the misery out of his voice. “I – this is my job, Mark. It wouldn’t be right,” Mark is frowning. Eduardo tries to imagine having this conversation with Mark fresh out of rehab – closed off, surly Mark. His heart hurts. His chest is burning.

“I know,” Mark says.

 

*

 

“Will you go with me?”

“Of course.”

 

*

 

In another world, their relationship would have ended over the depositions, not over an expired contract.

The important part is that their relationship always _ends_.

 

*

 

Eduardo leans against the car and watches Mark walk towards the fountain. He knows Mark so well now, knows how Mark hunches normally but straightens around some people and Mark is straightening now, shoulders suddenly taunt against his ratty hoody. He walks slowly, calmly, towards a girl with long brown hair, his left hand in his pocket. Eduardo has seen him do this walk before, at a fencing match and wonders if Mark sees this as a battle when in reality, it’s the signing of a treaty.

“Hi, Erica,” Mark says, and Erica turns to look at him, a smile lighting up her face. “Thanks for meeting me here today.”

Eduardo smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Marylin quotes the book _International Law, Cases, and Materials, 5th Edition_ by Louis Henkin, Lori F. Damrosch, Sean D. Murphy and Hans Smit. The quotes she addresses are on pages 9 and 11.
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr.](marnz.tumblr.com)


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